What contributed to the remarkable success of the ChME3 shunting locomotive?

If you are at least a little aware of shunting work at stations and claim that you are not familiar with the ChME3 diesel locomotive, then one of two things. Either you do not live in the post-Soviet space, or (in fact) you have nothing to do with steel highways. I will say more, even people who are far from the railway topic understand perfectly well what kind of equipment we are talking about. After all, he appeared countless times on silver screens in the most popular Soviet films, seen by millions of television viewers.


How did it happen that this unassuming worker gained such fame over an area of ​​tens of millions of square kilometers? Let's start with the fact that despite such prevalence, it is a foreign car. Yes, four decades ago, walking past one of the ChME3, I looked with interest at the trademark with a foreign inscription. Thanks to the fact that I loved hockey since childhood and knew the letters of the Czech alphabet, I was able to read: ČKD-Prague. That's it, and the name we are used to is just a Russian abbreviation: Czechoslovak Shunting, with Electric Drive, 3rd generation (CHME3).

Didn't you know about this before? And what about the fact that the second generation of these diesel locomotives also worked on our roads, and the first did not exist in nature at all? This and much more regarding the technology in question is described in detail in an informative video from the Zheleznodorozhnoe channel. We invite everyone who likes the heroes of steel highways of the past and present to watch!